


Tasik (Or, Five Times Beric Called Justinius Father and One Time Justinius called him Son. )

by thewolvesintherain



Category: Outcast - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mentions of Slavery, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:19:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewolvesintherain/pseuds/thewolvesintherain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beric and Justinius's relationship, through the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tasik (Or, Five Times Beric Called Justinius Father and One Time Justinius called him Son. )

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jay Tryfanstone](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jay+Tryfanstone).



I.  
"He had lost that wolfish look"

Beric may look less like a wolf, but Justinius learned, and quickly, that that didn't mean all the wolf was gone from him. The lad still had teeth.  
And if Justinius wasn't careful, he'd bite.  
He learned that the first week. When Beric would have run, would have just gone, into the wild, still half dead and heart sick too.  
It still keeps him up nights, thinking about what would have happened to the boy. Some patrol of his would have found the body, he knows that much for sure.  
  
But Beric is asleep in his cell off the main courtyard, covered in warm rugs with one over the door to keep the night chills away, a warm fire in the grate. The lad had worked hard today, with him, to save the wall, and it had settled him a little, to have a cause to fight for.  
Perhaps the Eagles would settle him more. He knew the fort commander of the frontier wolves, and Beric, he would do well there. Perhaps in a few years... There was no hurry.

It had become Beric's habit of late to break his fast with him, and the next morning was no exception, though Justinius well expected him to sleep in, Mithras knows he'd earned it.  
But Beric was there when Cordelia brought out his boiled eggs and plain brown bread, though for Beric she served honey cakes. He was trying to sit straight as was his usual custom, but the lad was still exhausted from his efforts yesterday, and his strength was not where it should be, after the galleys. It might never be, Justinius knew that. The galleys had a way of breaking a man's strength, almost like riding a horse too fast will break it's wind. Justinius lets him sit with him until it is time for him to leave, then convinces him to lie in front of the main fire today, with Morag and the pup, and dry out some more. Beric looks more than a little annoyed at the prospect of a day wasted, and it is not until Servius convinces him that nothing can be done until the ground dries out that he subsides and agrees to a rest. Justinius carries the boy's bedding into the main room himself, and when he leaves Beric is curled up warm and dry by the fire, with Morag at his feet giving the pup a well needed groom.  
He goes to his wall satisfied that all is well with hearth and home, and remains that way for a few days, until Servius comes to see him, face drawn pale with worry.  
It culls his stomach, to look at him, and when Servius says, "It's the lad." he swears he feels his heart stop for just a beat.  
Beric is still weaker than he should be, still tires easily, still gets a cough. What was he thinking? Letting him out into the storm? He should have sent him home to Cordelia and the fire.  
Yet he knows the boy would never have allowed that. Beric is not a trophy or a china piece to be kept safe and dry. He is a man, his own man and Justinius knows that should he forget that the lad will never forgive him.

Still, he has never moved more quickly in his life than when he finds his second and hands the wall away to him, only needing to tell the man that Beric is sick before the man nods, and tells him, "You take care of the cub sir. We're awfully fond of him, we all are. Leave that legate to me."  
When he retires, that man is getting his wall, and no one else. He'll write Rome if he has to. 

Beric is still curled in front of the fire, but there is a fever in him now, and a cough in his chest that is painful to listen to. It racks him off his cot, and it breaks Justinius's heart to have to press him down gently, and keep him still. The boy opens fever bright eyes, and looks at him hopefully, but there is no recognition in his gaze, and the only thing he says is "Tasik."  
Cordelia looks stricken, and flutters, asking, "What is he asking for? He shall have it, if it is in my power."  
And Justinius believes that, if Beric had asked for a stallion of Arabia, Cordelia would have found him one, or gone there herself.  
But even she cannot give the lad his father, and he tells her so.  
She looks horribly hurt for a long minute, before marching off to get some milk, and see if Justinius can get him to take it, muttering, "A lot his father did for him, sending him out into the wild like that...enough to make you sick..."  
It makes him smile, though he is heartsick almost to tears. But he pushes Beric's matted hair from his forehead, and speaks soothingly to him, and the lad drinks milk for him, and a bitter draft to boot, though he screws up his face at that one. Justinius speaks to him softly, strokes his hair, pulls the rugs straight, "All done with that now, Beric my cub. All done."  
Beric just murmurs, "Tasik" before drifting off to sleep again, and Justinius thinks that if he could find Beric's tribe, if he could find the men who'd driven him out and into the wild - to those slavers. Well, he'd kill them, and damn the consequences.  
Beric just mutters a little in his sleep before subsiding, and it breaks Justinius's heart, a little, how young he looks, against the rugs. Beric is young, not even twenty yet, and for only two decades on this earth, he's endured a disproportionate amount of pain. He knows he's considered a man in his own culture, though just barely, but to Justinius and his way of thinking, he's only a boy. 

Beric stirs on and off at night, each time seeming to recognize him less and less, and it is enough to make him want to scream with the injustice of it all. The healer comes up, but there is little the woman can do besides tell him that if the cub makes it past the dawn, he will likely live. The physician is coming, but not until the morrow, when it will too late either way, and Justinius, Mithras help him, he has never been so desperate in his life. This is Beric, his Beric, the savior of puppies, the beater of overseers, the builder of walls. He’s never been so desperate in his life but right now, because this is his child on the cot, fighting for his life, and if Beric dies, he will never believe in another god again. 

Sometime before dawn Beric’s fever breaks, and when they stir him to wrap him in warm blankets and dry the chilling sweat from his body. Beric looks at him, looks right at him, and murmurs, “Tasik, seemingly satisfied, before reaching for his hand, and Justinius can’t help but smile as he says, “Well then.” and keeps hold of the boys hand, letting it come to rest against Beric’s peacefully rising chest. 

II.  
When Beric has been well again for a few months, he takes up with some local boys, Britons all. They wrestle and play about like children, though Justinius doesn’t fault them, indulges them even. They are still young, and full of life, and slowly but surely some of that life runs over into Beric as well, and does him good. He loses the bitterness in his tone, most days, and comes home too exhausted to dream, often nodding off at his usual place at Justinius’s feet. (He’s told the lad he can take the other chair, but Beric loves to curl up on the ground by the fire and soak up the heat, no matter the season) 

All in all, he thinks it’s good for the lad to be in his own company.

He rethinks that statement the night when Beric stumbles in drunk to the main courtyard, seeing Justinius and crowing, “Tasik!” as he does. 

Justinius can’t help but smile a little as he waves to the boy responsible enough to make sure Beric got home alright, sliding one shoulder under his very inebriated son’s and beginning to shift him towards the direction of the steading. 

Beric, for his part, balks a little at that, murmuring, “That’s no’ my bed.” in a tone almost up to par with his usual sullenness.Since having a bed of his own for the first time in almost five years, Beric had grown surprisingly attached to his new one, though it was more of a nest of blankets than anything else. He shakes his head and tells Beric, “I think it’s best to keep you in here tonight lad.”  
Beric’s nightmares can become violent, and Justinius doesn’t want to leave the lad to deal with them, plus the addition of alcohol alone tonight. 

Beric just nods happily, slurring, “All right Tasik,” and even though he doesn’t quite know what he’s saying, the phrase warms Justinius’s heart a little.

III.

It’s later that same night when Beric says it again, a little more sober but much more terrified, in a string of words, pleading, “Not back to the galleys, Tasik. Please not that.”  
And Justinius can do nothing except to hold the lad closer, and promise him that he will allow no such thing. 

IV.  
By the time Beric has joined the Eagles, it is not particularly uncommon for him to call him Tasik , late of night or early of morning, but his first assignment is six long months in the north, and Justinius does not see the lad for eight. His letters are fond, but formal, and a little stilted, as if Beric is trying to force himself to sound all right, when in fact he isn’t. 

When he writes the garrison commander he hears that Beric’s service is excellent, but that the lad’s health isn’t good, and he’s to be sent back for leave. Alexios is a good man, and gets Beric transferred to the fort where Justinius is, tells him he thinks the lad will do better being able to come home to his own bed at night. 

When he sees Beric again, it is like looking at the same scared wolfish boy he’d first rescued from the galleys. He’s lost weight and he looks brittle and tired, and Justinius half expects him to snap at him for taking his own initiative and getting him moved back.

Instead Beric almost launches himself towards him, letting Justinius put both arms around him and murmuring, “Tasik” almost wonderingly. 

V.  
That night Beric explains how he’d been lonely and heartsick most of the time, but hadn’t known what to do about it. He’d been doing good work at the fort, and he’d been proud of his place in the Eagles, but he hadn't been ready to be so far away from home.  
And if hearing the steading and the wall referred to as “Home” made Justinius’s heart leap in his throat a little, well, no one can blame him.  
Beric pauses in his explanation to look to him for approval, and Justinius finds himself nodding and smiling, and telling the lad that it’s good to have him back, that he’s proud of him, no matter what. The look of relief in Beric’s eyes is obvious, and soon enough the lad is smiling as well, happy to be back and relieved that Justinius isn't upset. They end up playing draughts far too late at night, both not wanting to be parted for a while, and as Beric is stumbling off to his own sleeping cell, he murmurs, “Good night, Tasik,”  
There’s a lump in his throat as he replies in kind.

(And One Time Justinius Called Beric Son)

When he has to go to Rome to make his retirement official, he takes Beric with him. There’s no reason not to, though Beric seems wary of it, but he wants the lad to see Rome as a free man, without any of the horrors that were visited on him as a slave. 

They stay well away from the markets, and the coliseum, for he doesn’t think Beric would appreciate the gladiator fights (he’s not overly fond of them himself). But the lad enjoys the senate and the plays Justinius takes him too, and he counts the trip a success. 

They’re wandering the market the last day there are there, Justinius trying to find something for Cordelia, while Beric pokes around the necklaces for one of the girls he likes. There’s one of the magistrates passing through, and he looks up just in time to see a panic in Beric’s eyes that he has not seen in quite some time.  
He manages to shoulder his way through the crowd to see a man he knows as Publius Pio looking at his son with interest, and his head begins to pound with a sudden dreadful fear. When he comes up behind Beric and lays a hand on the boy’s shoulder he can hear Beric’s heart fluttering like a wounded birds against his neck.  
He looks up when Pio recognizes him, saying, “Justinius, it has been a while.”  
“Yes.” He relaxes a little, not releasing Beric’s shoulder for fear the boy will panic and run. “I’ve only been in city a few days else I would have visited.”  
It’s a lie, and they both know so, but it’s the courtesy, and must be observed.  
Pio looks at Beric again, closer, then tells Justinius, “I thought I recognized your slave here. Might be best to keep a better eye on him.”

Beric’s entire body goes bolt stiff, and Justinius is afraid Pio is about to go the way of the overseer, when he says, “Beric is my son, actually. His mother was British.”

Pio’s eyebrows raise, but he simply says, “Oh. My mistake then.”  
Justinius simply nods, feeling Beric begin to shake, and guides him away quickly, back to Servius and the ship. The captain doesn’t say anything, just looks at him sympathetically. He knows the man has seen the marks on Beric’s back from the few days he helped the crew with the lines and sails. The man has a very liberal view on slavery, the very reason Justinius chose this ship for the voyage to begin with. 

He asks the man if it would be possible for them to leave a little early, to which the captain and crew have no objections, (they are fond of Beric, to the last man) and they are off sooner than late.  
Beric says little about the incident except to mention that his mother was Pictish, and his father was British. Then he looks at Justinius and says, “Both of them are, actually.”

Justinius says nothing, but doesn't particularly think he needs to. And tonight, when Beric bids him goodnight, he is careful to tack a “son” on with his usual greeting.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm pretty incapable of romance, so Beric/ Justinius turned into Beric & Justinius (Sorry about that,) hope you like it. Also, I did my level best with the hound metaphor, but it's never been my strong point.
> 
> In this story, Beric uses the word, “Tasik” to refer to Justinius, which I’m told (by author Katy Moran of the wonderful Bloodline Series) is the old British word for “Father”. Hopefully this is right, and I haven’t made a complete ass of myself. 
> 
> Also, there’s the distinction made between Pictish and British and Roman. My understanding is that Picts were one of the last tribes left that had little to no Roman influence, being on the north side of Hadrian's wall. (The book gives no ideas as to what tribe Beric’s mother might have been from, so I simply supplied my best guess. It’s been a while since I read the book, so I’m hoping that my facts and timeline are correct. I know Beric’s father was a soldier, so I inferred that he was British, instead of simply Roman, which means that he might be of mixed blood, (Something I understand was common) or simply native to the British Isles.


End file.
